All posts by LosAdmin

Legalization of Street Vendors!

Employment

In a unanimous council victory of13-0, Los Angeles’ street vendors have been legalized. One of the“micro-entrepreneurs” (a term coined by Curren Price Jr. – one of the members of the City Council Chambers), Andres Garcia explained:

“For us, it’s very important. “If someone complains, the police, they could come in and take everything from us.Make us throw all our stuff away and we lose all our money for that day.”

The next step however, is to figure out the permit system and it is crucial that permit costs are not too cumbersome.Other details still have to be ironed out but these will be undertaken with the participation of various advocacy groups including the Leaders of the Los Angeles Street Vendor Campaign.

5G Technology Enhancing Local Services

Technology, , , ,

Ted Ross, Chief Information Officer for LA has claimed that in the future, with the assistance of 5G technology, cities will have the capacity to provide much better public safety and trash collection services.  Ross believes that this technology enables “more livable, equitable and sustainable living.”

He said:

“5G allows us an ultra-high speed connectivity that not only gives us better information of what our communities need when they ask for it, but also gives it the ability to deploy in a very efficient way. By proactively knowing when there’s an issue in the city, whether it’s a situation that needs police, or a situation that needs a pothole filled, it allows us to proactively respond and deliver it without a citizen never having to ask for it.”

It looks like this will be happening earlier rather than later.  Verizon recently announced that with the collaboration of Motorola, Qualcomm and Samsung, it was able to connect a smartphone to its 5G network. A trial was conducted using a Motorola Moto Z3 using a 5G moto mod, Verizon’s 28GHz millimetre-wave (mmWave) spectrum, Samsung’s 5G New Radio (NR) solutions, a Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G modem, and Qualcomm’s QTM052 mmWave antenna modules.  According to Bill Stone, VP of Technology and Planning at Verizon, the test – which was successful – expands its lead on 5G, and as such, they will be “the first to offer a 5G-upgradeable smartphone on [its] network in 2019.”

 

Getting Creative with the LA Clubbing Scene

Entertainment, , ,

There are a lot of successful, creative individuals in the LA region looking for something different in the entertainment industry.  There are currently two private clubs now which are gearing toward this scene, with a kind of elite membership in the hope of changing the caliber and genre of club scene.

Spring Place (which opened just last month on October 29) and  (due to open on February 9 next year) are taking a leaf out of the book of Soho House which limits membership to creative businesses. Clubs will feature private dining, sport facilities and residence rooms which are often found in membership based clubs worldwide.

Spring Place was designed by wHY Architecture – a finalist for the 2018 World Architecture Festival.

When Success and Philanthropy Join Hands

Featured, ,

Ask 10 successful businesses what ultimately led them to great success and you’ll get 10 different answers.  But when companies refer to the social responsibility and charitable giving their firm has engaged in on their journey to the top, that’s a game changer on a whole different level.

TOMS Shoes – where Laurent Potdevin made his mark some years back as company director – is one such company.  Founded in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie, what differentiated the shoe manufacturing company was its “one for one” business model (each pair that is sold means an impoverished child gets a pair).  This model has not in any way meant that the company has not been wildly financially successful though as well, proving that good business doesn’t have to just be about the bottom line.

Today, TOMS is still turning a profit and making increasingly more dreams come true. Thanks to its recent Disney partnership and the creation of the TOMS X Disney Princess Shoe Collection, girls and women worldwide can feel like real-life princesses.

Because at the end of the day, businesses that clothe the needy within the parameters of their success are nothing short of heroically dreamlike…and possibly the best measure of success that there is.

Los Angeles Licensing News

new businesses, , ,

Officials in LA have come to an arrangement with regulators in California to take the bureaucracy and time lag out of licensing.  Until now, marijuana-based businesses have not been able to get going due to the cumbersome red tape associated with the acquisition of local permits.

Now however, this could come to an end resulting in nearly 600 businesses getting their permits (those that had already applied and not received them yet).  According to a spokesman for the Department of Cannabis Regulation (DCR), this will however, only be for those who paid for the application (so that could be around half) but it’s still a huge step in the right direction.

In other licensing news, an announcement was made by KODAKOne Image Rights Management Platform about its Post-Licensing Portal (PLP) launch.  Featuring image recognition technology and smart web crawling, photographers and rightsholders will be given dependable image usage tracking online capacity as well as a more user-friendly approach, facilitating the transformation of infringers into customers.  As such, the process to license image usages retroactively will also become much simpler. Artificial Intelligence will then be used to enrich image metadata, flag necessary rights clearances and predict licensing value based on similar known images.

Such a “smart contract” will enable license management scaling.  KODAKCoin integration will enable the immediate settlement of licenses along with enhanced monetization and content creator liquidity.  According to RYDE CEO Jan Denecke:

“KODAKOne’s purpose is to legalize rather than criminalize unauthorized image usage and ensure content creators get fairly paid for their work. The PLP is only the first of the platform services and will be enhanced with the KODAKOne blockchain registry and smart contract and management layer.”

Thanks to UCLA, LA Employment is Heaving

Economy, ,

UCLA is LA County’s fourth largest employer.  Thanks to this public research educational institute in Westwood, LA, there are 72,000+ full-time jobs, generating $11.06 billion in Californian economic activity for the 2016-17 fiscal year.

As well as its employees and economic impact on the county, a report by Beacon Economics found 24 startups using UCLA-developed technology were launched in the 2016-17 fiscal year and 70 inventions from UCLA were licensed for commercial use.

According to Gene Block, Chancellor at UCLA:

 “UCLA’s contributions to our state’s economic vitality are significant and widespread, from discovering life-changing technologies to employing tens of thousands of Californians. Measuring this economic impact allows us to demonstrate how every dollar invested in UCLA pays substantial dividends back to people throughout our state.”

In addition, it was found that UCLA’s expenditure is having a positive impact on licensing, research and technology which is benefiting the overall economy.

Solving the LA Housing Crisis

Housing, ,

Historically, housing has been a problem in California.  Getting affordable housing is a bit like finding a four-leaved clover or finding a needle in a haystack; it just does not happen very often.  And then for those who do manage to secure a good landlord with a reasonable price, if they then have to move, they need to start the process all over again.

Enter Elvina Beck, founder and CEO of Podshare.  An ambitious Soviet Union immigrant, she grew up believing “there [was] nothing [she] couldn’t do.”  And so she created Podshare to solve the LA housing crisis.  She explains:

“PodShare offers co-living across the city of Los Angeles for one affordable rate. Our custom built ‘pods’ are a re-design of the American bunk bed, and our layout is set for the maximum number of social collisions and security. We are currently in DTLA Arts District, Los Feliz, Hollywood/Vine and opening Venice in April 2017. With 3 locations on the East side, and our first on the West side, we plan to expand to a total of 10 LA county locations to become the first subscription-based housing model. Imagine going to sleep off Hollywood Blvd., jumping on the WIFI in the Arts District, sunbathing in Venice, popping your big jacket into a locker in Los Feliz and grabbing a bicycle, shower, food in the kitchen, and meeting friends from all over the world for $50 a night.

Like a gym membership for shared living or a Euro-rail pass to a flexible, affordable, and centrally located place to live and work – PodShare’s goal is to expand to San Francisco and San Diego in order to allow freelancers, digital nomads, travelers, and apartment hunters try living in different places before they settle down for an annual lease or maybe then never do and PodShare becomes the new mobile home?”

PodShare opened its fifth location in L.A. this year and is increasing in popularity.  Tenants usually have their own bed-areas (pods) but share public space like kitchens, bathrooms, living space.  Rent is substantially lower and the buildings are generally managed by a company different from the owner – often a local developer.

One happy customer – Nadya Hewitt claims she would never be able to afford the area without PodShare.  She said:

“Oh my gosh. I’ve looked at studio apartments in this area, in Hollywood, downtown. I mean we’re looking at almost $2,000 a month.”

California: An “Economic Powerhouse”

Employment, , , ,

It was a recent article in The New York Times by Tim Arango, Adam Nagourney and Natalie Kitroeff that sung the praises of California’s economic surge.  They began their article by describing California as having:

“the highest concentration of billionaires in the country. It exports more computers than any other state. It is the nation’s largest producer of agriculture products by far: More than $6 billion in dairy products alone last year.”

They referred to California as “an economic powerhouse — now the fifth largest economy in the world after surpassing the United Kingdom in total output this year.”

But their concern is of Jerry Brown’s uncontested successor – Gavin Newsom – and how he will “navigate California through challenging fiscal times could be critical to assuring both the state’s continuing economic durability and its outsize contribution to national prosperity.”

Founding Partner of Beacon Economics, Christopher Thornberg believes that California is reflective of the economy as a whole.  He said:

 “So goes California, so goes the U.S.. It is far and away a dominant source of job growth in the U.S.”

And that’s good because a recent LA Times article noted how employment rates in California are positive too, with an additional 44,80 net jobs and a low of 4.2% in unemployment.  There was an increase in wages but that was  not “enough to top the increase in consumer prices.”

And as SS Economics President said: “California’s economy continues to sizzle.”

California: Women to be on Boards of Directors

Economy,

Although France and Norway have already made it law, nowhere in America has it been ruled that publicly traded companies have to have women on their boards of directors.

Until last week that was when Governor Jerry Brown signed a law (SB 826) that at least one female director must be on every board of California-based corporations by the end of 2019.  This number will increase to three by the end of 2021.  While there are some potential issues (as recognized by Brown), ultimately, author of the bill Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson believes it will “make companies more successful,” as well as facilitate the reduction in sexual harassment cases in the workplace.

To date, a quarter of publicly-held Californian HQ companies have no women on their boards of directors and are not making enough effort to change that.